Wednesday, August 09, 2006

WataCrackaz AutoSMS Status Report

This post was originally intended to give an udpate on the latest release of AutoSMS which now provides two-way messaging and a phonebook (visit http://www.watacrackaz.com for details), however this may be of some interest as well:--

Dear Customer:

Your account for watacrackaz.com is being sent this warning:

Hello.

It has come to our attention that your website, watacrackaz.com accounts for 52.05% of server traffic.

Currently you are on a shared hosting server. In shared hosting, multiple sites are hosted on a single server, so each site \"shares\" server space and resources with other customers. However, to be fair to the other sites on the server there are limitations with shared hosting. This email is to inform you that your domain is receiving too much traffic to remain in a shared hosting environment. Excessive traffic can lead to causing downtime, and slower response times for the other sites on the server. You may want to consider upgrading your account to a dedicated server to avoid problems in the future.

A Dedicated Hosting environment provides an exclusive server devoted solely to you. You do not share the server with other customers as with shared hosting. This freedom allows you to have total control over what is on your website, the number of websites or domain names hosted on the server, disk space usage, and complete freedom to install whatever you desire such as the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. Dedicated servers also come with their own email systems. For more information feel free to call our dedicated support department: 1-866-519-7079. Detailed information on the plans we offer for dedicated servers can be viewed here: http://www.hostrocket.com/products/dedicated.htm

-The HostRocket Support Team

To resolve this as soon as possible, a trouble ticket regarding this warning has already been opened for you, and you can reply back to it immediately by replying to this email. Please keep the subject of this email intact in your response.

-HostRocket Supportsupport@hostrocket.com

--So here I am. Being nudged off the edge of my comfy shared server that I've had for many years (since 2002 if memory serves). This project has been a labour of love for me (in other words, no monetary returns), and though it's open to donations, they have been few and far between (thanks to those that have made an offering. There's no feeling in the world like knowing someone likes your software so much they're willing to pay even though they don't have to).

After all the work I've put in I'm not about to cut and run, so it seems I'll have to make the step. I'll just have to find ways to (at least) have the server pay for itself. It's really hard to justify to anyone the reality of losing money so that people around the world can save money.

Anyway, thanks for all the support so far and I'll do all in my power to keep this service alive.